Shortly before New York Fashion Week started, Alexander Wang, one of the brightest stars in the American fashion system, announced that ...
Shortly before New York Fashion Week started, Alexander Wang, one of the brightest stars in the American fashion system, announced that this would be his last February show. Wang is shifting to an off-calendar June/December schedule to better align his runway events with sales. The move will accentuate what was already a fairly pronounced scenario: With Wang’s peers—Proenza Schouler, Rodarte, Altuzarra, et al.—decamped for Paris, the middle has fallen out of NYFW.
If the center will not hold, that leaves the designers at the extremes to make the news. Reassuringly, both the upstarts and the establishment delivered this New York season. Telfar Clemens’s musical performance piece was the buzziest event of the week, and the likes of Eckhaus Latta and Vaquera are overhauling the runway show top to bottom, starting with their friends and family approach to casting. At the other end of the spectrum there’s Calvin Klein’s Raf Simons, whose imaginative, doubtlessly expensive show set the bar high for immersive experiences, with inventive, desirable clothes to match.
What the future holds for Fashion Week here is very much an open question, but whichever way it shakes out we’re confident about American fashion. Here, we highlight New York’s top 10 collections in alphabetical order.
Calvin Klein
Raf Simons left the confines of 205 West 39th Street for his third Calvin Klein show; his hallucinatory prairie-apocalypse set required a building with a massive footprint. And so it was that the American Stock Exchange was blanketed with three semitrucks full of popcorn, and hosted a fashion parade of firemen’s jackets and hazmat boots. Oh, the metaphors! But for all the anxiety-producing, conceptual fashion on display, there was quiet beauty in the patch-worked chiffon dresses and homespun-slash-haute matching blankets. Lots of great sweaters, too, which mixed specialness with simplicity.
Eckhaus Latta
Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta have been producing their off-the-grid shows for a few years, but this is the season the holdouts finally decided that the bicoastal duo matters. The front row was well stocked with arbiters from both sides of the Atlantic. Eckhaus Latta first-timers were treated to cut-out jersey dresses, more of their experimental, intentionally naive knits, and, best of all, an expanded range of terrific jeans.
Gabriela Hearst
With #MeToo in the headlines, executive realness was a subject on the minds of New York designers. Nobody handled it with more convincing aplomb than Gabriela Hearst. It pays to be a boss lady when designing boss-lady clothes. The fact that she executes her efficient sense of chic with such indulgent materials counts for a lot, too. Gabriela, please make the delicious Café Altro Paradiso lunch you served us all a seasonal tradition.
Gypsy Sport
Rio Uribe was back in New York this week after a one-season detour to Paris, where his Gypsy Sport guerrilla show in Place de la République stopped busy French commuters in their tracks. This latest outing was equally as energizing, not just for its “come one, call all” cast (10-year-old kinder-drag star Desmond Is Amazing was a real showstopper), but also for Uribe’s wildly creative DIY clothes, like this embellished black skirt. Also: He’s going to do a bang-up business with those “Peasant” tees.
Marc Jacobs has never not been a risk-taker, even now as he’s up against a challenging business picture. His ode to ’80s couture was über-confident and utterly without compromise, and it yielded one of the rare major fashion statements of the week. Bless him.
Michael Kors Collection
Years from now, when essays are written about the lasting appeal of Michael Kors it will come down to this: the irrepressible joy he takes in fashion and the uplift he brings to all who participate in it with him. His Fall show was dedicated to individual style and its mix-and-match aesthetic felt very much in tune with the moment. Bonus points for the pop soundtrack and the inclusive all ages, shapes, sizes, and backgrounds casting. Everybody left smiling.
This was Kerby Jean-Raymond’s breakthrough season. With a gospel choir singing Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” in the background, the Pyer Moss designer launched not one, but two winning collaborations, one with the 1990s cult streetwear label, Cross Colours, and the other with the sportswear giant Reebok, and riffed on the look of 19th-century black cowboys, a little-known chapter in American history. Let’s hope he lands more of the former, so he can keep doing more of the latter.
Telfar Clemens is rewriting the designer playbook. He may have taken home the top prize at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund last November, but he definitely hasn’t gone establishment. See the packed-to-the-rafters musical performance piece he staged, and, even more ingenious, see the way he’s asking fans to vote on exactly what he should produce from the collection.
Wending their way through 13 Isamu Noguchi sculptures, the models at The Row exuded a serenity not often seen during New York Fashion Week, and even less frequently spotted on the mean streets. Maybe that’s why it’s the aspirational local brand of choice for insiders. As editors plunged back into the brisk Monday morning, there were coos of delight over the monochrome suiting and whispered longings about a black turtleneck and tapered ball skirt. Modern elegance perfected.
The Vaquera designers are gifted with keen visual wit, and they put it to clever use in their latest collection, a mash-up of the sacred and profane. Religious iconography and gambling references mixed here with an irreverence unmatched on the New York runways. The foursome believes in just one thing: fashion. Their American Apparel–made polo dresses feature Sharpie-marker portraits of the greats: Vivienne Westwood, Miguel Adrover, André Walker, and Martin Margiela. Divine!
news credit:https://www.vogue.com/article/new-york-fashion-week-fall-2018-top-10-collections
